Pete Rose Baseball Graphics

[easmith]

I am toying with the idea of a HardBall  attempt.     Hardball is very similar to Pete Rose Baseball graphically, down to the behind the pitcher view , and the fact that only the left or right half of the field shows when the  ball is hit.  So I am not sure if it is even worth it to attempt, except it seems it could be more colorful. 

 

I think I have the behind the pitcher view figured out for Pete Rose:

 

Pitcher is P0, dirt mound is P1?  but seems too wide even for Quad--- must be a Missile 

 

Rubber = PF

 

Ball is ball, shadow is M0 or M1. Not sure about diamond . 

 

Plate , batter's box, and foul lines are Playfield ( Asymmetric) .

 

Catcher and Umpire are one graphic ( P1) and batter is 1 graphic ( P0) 

 

 

.  The question I have is this for this portion of screen : It seems you need to have 2 separate kernels , one for batter/ umpire , and one for pitcher. Ball and shadow just have to jump from one to the other , which is not too hard.

BUT, I do not see an HMOVE line where  I would expect one since the graphics need to be re-positioned. I think there is a way to not have these but I cannot remember .

This is the approach I took in my early game Pickle:

 

 

Fielding View:

Ball = ball, shadow = M1 or M0, foul lines = M1 or M0, bases and mound = PF

 

Pete Rose does not show outfielders , Hardball Does.  I think the Hardball way is better and cleaner.  

I don't think it would be hard to add 2 outfielders at the top of the screen.

 

I am a bit baffled on how the graphics are being done here for the players . It does not look like the player graphics are being duplicated, since they all move independently.  It also does not appear that there are multiple kernels , since the  runners do  not appear to transition across a change ( or else it is just really smooth) , and there are no HMOVE lines.  My hunch is  that ( see below)  Shortstop is , 3rd baseman, pitcher , and Catcher , are P0 in 4 separate kernels, and that runner is P1 ( runner(s) can be in any of the 4 levels.  ( A fifth level could be added at top for 2 outfielders as in Hardball) 

.

 

If anyone knows how this was done ( assuming I am wrong) I would appreciate some insight.  I am probably using a very unsophisticated brute force kind of approach.

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by easmith

[tokumaru]

Have you tried Stella's debug colors mode? You can see what objects are used for what without having to guess.

[Nukey Shay]

HMOVE is hit on every scanline, which is why there is a black left border.

 

When pitching,  Catcher and Batter (and farther down, Pitcher) objects have their horizontal motion register and size set on every scanline...makes it appear that the sprites are wider than 8 bits.  If you examine each scanline of sprites, you can see that no more than 8 bits are used on any of them.

 

Home plate is a player object.  Both lower lines of the batter's box are also players.  Diamond lines are drawn using missiles.

 

The ball AND shadow are done using the ball sprite (recolor PF to black after the baseball is drawn).

 

The pitcher's mound is a combination of PF and the ball sprite to smooth out the right edge.  PF is set to background color during the scanlines to hide the mirrored PF on the right side of the display.

 

Outfield:

All outfielders are using the same player sprite.  Only the batter is using the other one.  One missile is used to draw the diamond foul line (and associated base via width reset), while the other missile draws 2nd base, pitcher's mound, and home plate.  The ball sprite is once again used to draw both baseball and shadow.

[JeffJetton]

On 7/29/2019 at 1:07 PM, Nukey Shay said:

When pitching,  Catcher and Batter (and farther down, Pitcher) objects have their horizontal motion register and size set on every scanline...makes it appear that the sprites are wider than 8 bits.  If you examine each scanline of sprites, you can see that no more than 8 bits are used on any of them. 

 

Wow. All of those tricks are masterclass-level stuff, but this particular one is genius!

[Nukey Shay]

You'll see it often in M-Network stuff, they make a goal to stay away from flicker...so their programs use this method to draw missiles and make them appear as if they are the 8-bit sprites.  Texas Chainsaw Massacre uses it to create Leatherfaces' cutlery of choice.  Shifting HM's/sizes can be quite impressive - those little divers and their bubbles in Seaquest? Just the 1-pixel ball sprite shifted and stretched.